Yoke lutes, commonly called lyres, are a class of

string instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the s ...

s, subfamily of

lutes A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can refer ...

, indicated with the code 321.2 in the

Hornbostel–Sachs Hornbostel–Sachs or Sachs–Hornbostel is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the in 1914. An English translation was published in the '' Galpin Society ...

classification.

Description

Yoke lutes are defined as instruments with one or more strings, arranged parallel to the sound board and attached to a

yoke A yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, u ...

lying on the same plane as the sound table, composed of two arms and a crosspiece. Most of the instruments of the lyre family are played by plucking the strings, but some involve the use of a bow instead. The

sound box A sound box or sounding box (sometimes written soundbox) is an open chamber in the body of a musical instrument which modifies the sound of the instrument, and helps transfer that sound to the surrounding air. Objects respond more strongly to vibr ...

can be either bowl-shaped (321.21) or box-shaped (321.22). In the first case, the resonator is often a turtle shell, while the sound board is made of leather. In the second case, usually both the body and the sound board are made of wood.

Examples

Examples of yoke lutes are the

lyre The lyre () is a string instrument, stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the History of lute-family instruments, lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it ...

, the ''

cithara The kithara (or Latinized cithara) ( el, κιθάρα, translit=kithāra, lat, cithara) was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. In modern Greek the word ''kithara'' has come to mean "guitar", a word which etymolog ...

'' and the '' phorminx'' from Ancient Greece, the biblical ''

kinnor Kinnor ( he, ''kīnnōr'') is an ancient Israelite musical instrument in the yoke lutes family, the first one to be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Its exact identification is unclear, but in the modern day it is generally translated as "har ...

'' and the African '' nyatiti''. However, there are other instruments called "lyra" or "lira" that do not belong, from an organological point of view, to this family, but rather to the handle lutes, such as: the

Byzantine lyra The Byzantine lyra or lira ( gr, λύρα) was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by ...

, the

Calabrian lira The Calabrian lira ( it, lira Calabrese) is a traditional musical instrument characteristic of some areas of Calabria, region in southern Italy. Characteristics The lira of Calabria is a bowed string instrument with three strings. Like most bo ...

, the

Cretan lyra ) * Lira da braccio * Rabāb (Arabic الرباب) * Lijerica * Violin , musicians = * Andreas Rodinos * Alekos Karavitis * Antonis Papadakis (Kareklas) * Kostas Mountakis * Nikos Xilouris * Psarantonis * Ross Daly * Yiorgos K ...

, the ''

lira da braccio The lira da braccio (or ''lyra de bracio''Michael Praetorius. Syntagma Musicum Theatrum Instrumentorum seu Sciagraphia Wolfenbüttel 1620) was a European bowed string instrument of the Renaissance. It was used by Italian poet-musicians in court ...

'', the

lyra viol The lyra viol is a small bass viol, used primarily in England in the seventeenth century. Described as "the smallest of the bass viols", one should consider that the consort bass was much larger in 17th century England than most bass viols nowa ...

References

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